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DECATUR, Ga. -- Dr. Sharmila Makhija, MBA, has been named the new chairwoman of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women's Health at the University of Louisville School of Medicine.

Dr. Edward Halperin, dean of the UofL School of Medicine, said that Makhija's appointment is effective July 1 and subject to approval by the school's Board of Trustees.

"My goal was to identify a physician-scholar to lead the development in clinical care, medical education and research related to providing health care to women, and move the James Graham Brown Cancer Center another step closer to NCI designation," Halperin said. "We have accomplished this . . . we have recruited a national leader."

Makhija is currently a chief and associate professor of gynecologic oncology at Emory University. She is also a Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Cancer Scholar and holder of Emory's Leach Endowed Chair in obstetrics and gynecology.

She received her medical degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and completed her obstetrics and gynecology residency at the University of Louisville Hospital and a fellowship in gynecologic oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Makhija recently received an executive MBA from Emory's Goizueta Business School. She has held faculty positions at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Alabama at Birmingham as well as Emory.

Dr. Makhija has been honored multiple times for both her teaching and her medical practice. In 2008, she won the Argus Award for Teaching Excellence at the University of Alabama School of Medicine. She has also been listed as a "Top Doctor in America" for the past four years.